Water the Roots
by Seito
Summary: In this world, Shouta never became a Pro-Hero. He took one look at the media and commercialism tied to Pro-Hero and decided it wasn't for him. How else could he help society become better? He looked at the children, the future who would go onto shaping the world for better or worse. Surely he could plant the seeds, watch them grow. So he becomes a middle school teacher.


Shouta looked down at the paperwork for Yuuei's entrance exam. The due date was coming up soon and he needed to submit it to today in order for it to make it there on time.

He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. Being a Pro-Hero was something he always dreamed about. Not for the fame or fortune, but to help people. But lately, he had been giving it some thought and a disturbing trend had popped up.

It felt as if being a Pro-Hero had made the subtle shift from just helping people to being on par with celebrities. Sure, they still helped people out, but there was suddenly a large tie in with sponsorships and endorsements.

As if right on cue, a commercial of selling milk with All Might's face branded on it played on the TV.

Shouta twitched. "I do not want to become like that," he said.

Perhaps the route of being a Pro-Hero was not the one he should take.

So, what he could he do then? What was a better way to help society?

A loud crash jolted him out of his thoughts and he saw a baseball had broken the window. He scowled, avoiding the glass to pick up the ball.

"Oh no!"

Shouta looked outside to see a bunch of kids. They took one look at him and tried to scattered. Shouta flew out the door, vaulting over the wall surrounding his house and landing in front of the group of three kids. "Hold it!" he snapped.

The kids froze, staring at him. A two of them burst into tears, crying.

"We're sorry!" the tallest and probable leader of the group blurted out.

"That should have been the first thing you did," Shouta said. "Take responsibility! You kids broke a window. The first thing you should have done was apologize rather than running away."

"But you would have yelled at us," a crying chubby kid wailed, rubbing his eyes.

Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose. Quieter, gentler than. They were just kids. They didn't know better. "Actions have consequences," he explained, handing a handkerchief to the sobbing child. "You have to take responsibility for them. You kids broke a window. What if it hit me and knocked me unconscious? I would have needed a hospital and could have died."

"You could have died?!" The shortest of the group yelped, crying harder.

"You never know," Shouta scolded gently. "That's why you should have checked by coming to apologize."

"Are you going to tell our parents?" the chubby kid asked.

"That depends," Shouta said. He held out the baseball to the tallest boy. "What have we learned today?"

By now the tall kid caught on that Shouta wasn't here to yell at them. He accepted the ball from Shouta. "Umm that actions have consequences?" he said. "And we should have apologized?"

"And to check cause you have been hurt and needed a hospital," the short kid said.

"Why could I possibly need a hospital?" Shouta asked, wanting to see if they understood.

"Because we hit the baseball too hard and broke your window, but we could have hit you instead?" the chubby kid asked.

Shouta beamed. "Yes. Good job."

The kids shared watery smiles with him.

He waved them off. "Alright, go back to having fun. Just be more careful."

"What about your window?" the tall kid asked hesitantly.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it," Shouta said. His mother would be upset, but the effort to hunt down these kids' parents wasn't really worth it.

The three kids shared a look. "Thank you and we're sorry!" they chorused together. They gave him a bow and ran off.

Shouta huffed, leisurely walking back into his house. He got a broom out and cleaned up the broken glass. He dumped it in the trashcan and got out some cardboard to board up the window until they could replace it.

"Shouta?" his mother called out from the doorway, dumping her bags of groceries on the floor. "Oh my, what happened?"

"Just some kids," Shouta said.

His mother huffed. "Some kids don't have any concept of responsibility."

"I told them they need to be more mindful of their actions," Shouta said, taping the cardboard down.

His mother smiled. "Oh? Ever the teacher, aren't you?"

Shouta turned to look at her. Teacher? Huh. That was something to consider. Children were the future of world, for better or worse. Maybe teaching them, helping them grow into better people would be the way to help the world.

-.-.-.-

-Sixteen Years Later-

Shouta stood outside the classroom door, readied for another year school year. Being a middle school teacher was both tiring and rewarding. Frankly, the kids ran him ragged on a daily basis. It was always "Want to be like All Might" or "I'm going to be a Pro-Hero!" with them.

Still, he liked to think he drove home the lesson of responsibility and consequences. Plenty of his students went on to become Pro-Heroes like they wanted, but others went on to become lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers. No matter what walks of life they had, they seemed to go where they wanted to go, even if it was just managing a part time job at the local convenience store. Shouta took it as a sign that he was doing something right.

"Let's start off the first day of class on a strong note," Shouta said to himself softly. He opened the door and came face to face with an explosion.

"SHUT UP DEKU!" one of his newest students shouted, grabbing another student by the collar. A small explosion going off, dangerously near his victim's face.

Shouta twitched. But first, he had to deal with this.

Eyes turning red, he sealed the blond's Quirk. He grabbed the blond's hand, twisting him away from the black-haired student. With a push, the blond landed on a chair and Aizawa pulled out some rope he carried and tied to the blond to the chair before even he could even stand up.

"Alright, who wants to tell me what's going on?" Shouta asked. "Because it looks like bullying and I have a zero-tolerance bullying policy in this classroom."

"W-who?" the bullied black-haired kid asked.

Ah right. "I'm Aizawa Shouta, your homeroom teacher. Now talk."

Shouta stared down at the two students at the heart of the matter. The blond, Bakugou Katsuki he now recognized, was frothing at the mouth and snarling like a dangerous animal. He pulled at the ropes, trying to break free. The other must be Midoriya Izuku. Izuku looked down, not meeting Shouta in the eye.

Of course, it would be these two. Shouta had received countless warnings about the two of them from their previous teachers. The two were impossible to break apart. Bakugou with his explosion Quirk and Midoriya, Quirkless. The bully and the bullied.

These two were going to be such a headache.

"Midoriya," Shouta said. "What happened?"

Midoriya looked up at him, nervous. "Kacchan just… doesn't like to be reminded that I know quite a bit about Pro-Heroes." He blushed a bright red, clearly embarrassed.

"The fucking nerd thinks he knows it all!" Bakugou snarled. "He's a waste of space!"

Shouta frowned as each word caused Midoriya to flinch as if he was being physically being assaulted. He didn't like that reaction. It was ingrained, long lasting and why the fuck had no one done anything before? That type of reaction didn't pop up overnight.

He mentally scowled, already readjusting his plans. These two. Midoriya's Quirkless was probably the primary issue. He would need to raise some awareness regarding Quirkless. If he recalled correctly from all the student records, Midoriya was the only one in the class who was Quirkless. 20 percent of their population was Quirkless. The numbers may be dropping, but this behavior was unacceptable.

"Bakugou you will be cleaning the classroom by yourself today. I do not tolerate bullying in this classroom," Shouta said.

He didn't like the way both Bakugou and Midoriya stared up at him in surprise. Had no one ever stepped in between two?

Shit.

Shouta already didn't like what he saw. Bakugou's temper was going to get the best of him eventually. He could seriously hurt someone one day and his Quirk made the potential fallout. If he wasn't careful, Bakugou could end up in the wrong crowd, turning into a villain.

Midoriya had one foot off the ledge and no one noticed it. He was one major push away from committing suicide, an easy target for self-harm and his self-esteem seemed to be barely holding on. The story was these two knew each other for ages. That meant they knew each other's hot issue buttons and who knows when the bullying actually started.

What a nightmare. Shouta wasn't sure if one school year was enough to get through these two.

But he would. He was determined to see these two grow.

* * *

I ended up writing my Water the Roots AU (wander over to tumblr to see more of this universe). I don't know how many chapters this will have. It'll be pretty short. 3-4 chapters top.

Happy New Year

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